MakeUseOf.com: “Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun]” plus 11 more |  |
- Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun]
- Cool Websites and Tools [January 26th]
- InClass – The Perfect Agenda App For College Students [iOS]
- Socially – A Social Networking Tool For Symbian & Android Phones
- Using The MSN Hotmail Member Directory To Find Your Friends
- Hot Tech Deals [Jan 26th]
- 8 Websites That Give You Tips On Job Interview Questions and Answers
- PAC: Easily Create Your Own Portable Apps – No Programming Knowledge Required [Windows]
- 10 Free Productivity Apps In The New Mac App Store
- HTML5games: A Directory Of Flash-Free Browser Based Games
- CheckPoints – Earn Cool Stuff By Checking In & Scanning Products With Your Phone
- New Search Engine Qwiki Launches To The Public [News]
| Latest Hilarious Picks [MakeUseOf Geeky Fun] Posted: 26 Jan 2011 11:21 PM PST
If you would like to keep up with all latest Geeky Fun additions, please subscribe to the Geeky Fun feed here. You can also subscribe and get the latest additions via email.
Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
    
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cool Websites and Tools [January 26th] Posted: 26 Jan 2011 07:31 PM PST
These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| InClass – The Perfect Agenda App For College Students [iOS] Posted: 26 Jan 2011 05:31 PM PST
InClass was featured in Apple’s College Survival Guide, where it stands as one of the few free apps. Other free productivity apps worth mentioning from the list would be the Wunderlist task managing app [iTunes link], Evernote [iTunes link], iBooks [iTunes link], Siri Assistant [iTunes link] and Rate My Professors [iTunes link], among other entertainment and lifestyle apps. Let’s see what makes InClass incredibly useful for keeping track of your classes. Take Text & Multimedia NotesSince InClass is available for the iPad, you can use it as a notebook and reading app, which will make your backpack a lot lighter. Not many students will have an iPad, but if you own an iPhone or even an iPod Touch, you can also make great use of this app as an agenda and even notebook.
With this app, you’ll be able to record the audio for your lecture (and multitask too!), as well as video capture and take photos of the whiteboard or handouts. You can set whether or not to capture the audio and video in high quality (and HD video) in the Settings, but they’re off by default to save space. InClass will know to associate the multimedia and text files with the class.
If you take pictures, you can also print them directly from the app or share them on Facebook if you want to connect your account. If your classmates use InClass, you can also share your notes (which are a special InClass file type) with them. You can also email each individual note, and export your notes via iTunes File Sharing or back them up, which you can later open in InClass if, say, you’re changing devices, and you’ll still get all of your notes, tasks and classes. Here’s what an emailed note looks like.
See Your Classes & Tasks For The Day In The Schedule
In the Schedule tab, you get a smart view of what classes and homework you have for that day. You can also get a monthly view of upcoming classes and color-coded tasks. There’s also a professors tab where you can input the contact information for each class’s instructor, which could save you from having to keep the syllabus around.
You can also take a picture of the syllabus or convert the PDF to an image to keep in your Photos library, so you can insert that file in your InClass notes. Get Reminder Alerts For Tasks/Homework & ClassesYou can set alarms in InClass, which can remind you of upcoming classes and tasks so you’re constantly on top of your schedule.
You can even set the badge icon to show you how many tasks you have due for the week or for the next two weeks.
Overall, InClass will make keeping track of your classes, homework and syllabi much easier and simply shines for the value. Do you prefer physical agendas or like to just use your phone as a planner? Let us know what you think in the comments section. NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Socially – A Social Networking Tool For Symbian & Android Phones Posted: 26 Jan 2011 03:31 PM PST
Socially is completely free and under active development, Facebook support is provided in the latest version (3.01 beta) although you’ll have to stick to the stable build if you want to use Foursquare. Socially AdeptThere is (planned, depending on your handset) support for the “big 4″ social networks built into Socially – Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and the location-aware Foursquare. The limited choice suited my needs quite nicely, especially since there’s a lack of decent Foursquare applications for Symbian phones. Adding a network is done via the usual methods. On first load Socially will display a list of available networks, and then ask you to authenticate the application to allow access to your chosen service.
Once you’ve validated your login, your feeds will be delivered straight to your phone and you can post updates, send messages, add location to Twitter and Foursquare and so on.
The interface is clean, attractive and works well on a touchscreen thanks to the well-sized tab headings and buttons. The application’s idle screen serves as an overview of recent updates from your connected services and is also the screen used to compose a new update.
Luckily you can choose to post an update to multiple networks at once, although if you’re like me and never update Linked In you’ll have to uncheck it each time (which is slightly annoying). There’s also no autocomplete for Twitter or Facebook usernames, though I’m not aware of any Symbian app that includes this (probably due to the botched S60 text input). Handset IntegrationSocially is able to integrate and sync certain features with your handset itself. Basic push notifications are available and customizable (so you can ignore Facebook and just listen in on Twitter if you like) and appear on your phone’s idle screen.
I really liked this, as I have noticed a distinct lack of social apps with built-in support for notifications on the Symbian platform. I’m assuming many Android users won’t bat an eyelid as much of this is standard for their handsets and operating system. There is also the option to query social information for any incoming calls, which means you’ll see the caller’s latest tweet or status update (not that it matters all that much).
Socially also has the ability to sync Facebook photos with your contacts list and the slightly more useful option of adding Facebook friends’ birthdays to your phone’s in-built calendar. You’ll also notice Socially popping up in various parts of your phone, including contacts. Socially scans networking sites and links any of your contacts to their respective social profiles. There is also the ability to view your normal phone contacts via the app itself, and both of these options are a nice touch. Conclusion or How I Learned To Stop Worrying & Love The BetaAs I mentioned previously there are currently two versions of Socially – the stable and the beta. You can find download instructions on the website here. Whilst being largely stable (I haven’t experienced any crashes yet) the Beta does sacrifice Foursquare support for the time being. That said I was told I needed to update from stable to beta to use Facebook. My phone is a Symbian S60v5 touch Sony Ericsson Satio, so if you’ve got the same handset bear this in mind. There’s a list of officially supported handsets here. Socially is a promising little social networking tool that is on the cusp of excellence. It’s not cluttered with social networks I don’t (and won’t ever) use, the interface is an absolute joy to use, and everything’s beautifully presented to boot. If you’re not afraid of software that still needs work, are searching for a good social app (probably for Symbian) and like social network integration then Socially is certainly worth keeping a very close eye on. NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Using The MSN Hotmail Member Directory To Find Your Friends Posted: 26 Jan 2011 01:31 PM PST
Here at MUO, we’ve covered Hotmail a number of times. Jack wrote about how to access Hotmail messages from your Gmail account and Tim explained how to make your Hotmail email account more secure.
Hotmail Is Part Of Windows LiveThe first thing that the majority of readers will likely already know (so it shouldn’t be news) is that Hotmail is no longer just MSN Hotmail, but instead it’s now Windows Live Hotmail. This means that the MSN Hotmail member directory that people were so accustomed to is now the Windows Live member directory.
The problem with the new Windows Live Hotmail system is that it’s not really apparent how to get to the public member directory. When you’re logged into your Hotmail email account, you can access the member directory by clicking on “Contacts” in the left navigation bar. Most people assume that “Contacts” only means your own personal contacts, but this is in fact the starting point to find the public directory.
Within your Contacts page, you’ll see a link to “Add people” in the left menu. Over the past few years, like many other social networks, Microsoft has been busy cloning the Facebook model. You’ll find that the entire Windows Live social network system looks and feels a lot like Facebook, right down to the public status updates and how you connect with friends. The first step is to choose what privacy level you want to set your Windows Live account.
Once you’ve done that, you’ll find yourself in the Windows Live member directory search page. Here, you can import friends from your other social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, or your Gmail account. To search through the massive member directory for any long-lost friends, you’ll need to click on “Search for people.”
Now, you’re finally on the Member Directory search page. This is much like doing a Facebook search to find your family or friends on the Internet in that you can search by their name, employer, school or a number of other search methods. If you’ve been looking for lost friends or family and couldn’t find them on Facebook, you could very well find them on Windows Live, since it is currently one of the largest email systems online.
Type in the name of the friend you’re looking for and you’ll get back the results of everyone on Windows Live with the matching name. Just like on Facebook, you’ll see any location, educational or employment information that the person made public. These details should help you better identify whether that person is the friend you’ve been searching for.
Once you find them, the similarity to Facebook really comes out. You can invite the person to become one of your Windows Live “friends”. This allows them to see your updates and details, and lets them see yours. It also adds them to your contact list in Windows Live Messenger and any other Windows Live social apps that you use.
Another similarity to Facebook People search is the ability to dig through the MSN Hotmail member directory using a list of “variables,” including gender, location, education, and even interests. Not only is it a good way to find long lost friends, but it’s also a cool way to discover people that share your interests and potentially make new friends.
The one thing that really surprised me was when I started exploring the personal pages of some of the Windows Live users. Interestingly, the individual Windows Live pages are laid out a lot like Facebook pages. It’s pretty clear that Microsoft is trying to utilize the same layout as Facebook – catering to an online community that clearly prefers a social network where you post status updates and follow your friends’ updates.
It was also shocking to me that, just like on Facebook, people are so willing to offer their very private information. For example, I found one user (the one above) that provided her home and mobile phone numbers and her email address, to the public Windows Live network! Such a large member directory that’s publicly accessible to anyone with a Windows Live account makes it an excellent resource to find your friends. It may not be easy to find the member directory search page, but once you sign up for a Windows Live Hotmail account and follow the steps above, you can start searching as much as you like. Have you used the Hotmail directory to “discover” any lost friends? Do you use the Windows Live social network? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below. NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 26 Jan 2011 12:15 PM PST
For more fresh hot deals, visit our Hot Tech Deals page, which is constantly updated.
Image credit: Modified from Svengraph’s icon set
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8 Websites That Give You Tips On Job Interview Questions and Answers Posted: 26 Jan 2011 11:31 AM PST
Sometimes, the most matter of fact questions can knock you off kilter. The ‘tell me about yourself’ interview ice-breaker makes the ‘most difficult interview questions’ list quite often. A smart off the cuff answer works, but it works better if you have the answer prepared. If preparation is the key, browse through these eight interview websites and bulletproof your job search with the wealth of technical and non-technical interview questions and answers listed there. CareerCup
Careercup is a resource of tech interview questions from companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and a lot of others. The site was started in 2005, so to date the bank of questions is 3,000 strong. You can trawl through the questions by using the dropdown for Companies, Job Titles, and Topics. The answers and solutions are supplied by the community of readers. You can add your own interview questions and also engage with others in the chat room. Glassdoor
We have featured this free career website and community before but it was as a salary comparison tool. Since then, the site has come out of beta and developed into a deeper microscope for the job market with company reviews, salary comparisons, and interview tips. The site lists interview questions across the spectrum of job listings from sales to technology. The site is well organized with each company getting a page that starts with an overview and hives off into details like interview difficulty rating, questions asked, and other information like background checks, interview schedules, etc. It's definitely is one of the better job information sites out there. Monster
The go-to site for career and job listing information has a well covered career advice section with a section devoted to interviewing. Check out all the articles listed under The Tough Questions. A few hints from How to Answer Five Difficult Interview Questions and 100 Potential Interview Questions should help you ace any interview. Job Search (About.com)
The wide variety of guides on About.com is always more than useful. It's the same with the roll of interview questions and best answers for each of them. Follow all the links and check them out. Management Consulting Case Interviews
We move away from all the general and technical interview websites with this one. As the name says, the site is all about in-depth interview questions for those who are interested in getting into management consulting. The case studies are arranged by type, industry, and consulting firm. Xor Swap
The technical interview website is simple in looks but its list of actual interview questions asked by IT companies could be more than useful. Each question also has the answer and you can add your own. Filter the questions against the company using the list of companies on the right. Geek Interview
The site of course, has a nicely laid out interview preparation section with a lot of questions for the software programmer or coder. The site leans towards the Indian IT scene but the questions should be universal for an IT interview. The site also has tutorials on technology, tech articles, career related articles, job postings, certification questions and guides, online tests and other study aids. Common Interview
The website with a barebones search engine-like interface is actually a dynamic, community driven collection of most common general purpose and technical interview questions. The search box gave me a bunch of unrelated results (the Advanced Search targets them better), so I guess it's better to use the menu on the top. Not all questions have answers but the collection of interview questions and answers is quite large. Armed with the best answers, you can further polish your interview tackling skills with 5 Sites with Job Interview Tips to Help You Ace Your Interview or take the visual route with 5 Video Channels for Learning Basic Job Interview Skills. As you prepare for the next ‘blind date’ with the job board, let us know about the toughest interview question you ever had to counter. Image: Shutterstock NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| PAC: Easily Create Your Own Portable Apps – No Programming Knowledge Required [Windows] Posted: 26 Jan 2011 10:31 AM PST
You can begin building your portable apps collection by going through the list on this article: 100 Portable Apps for your USB Stick, by visiting PortableApps, or by using a search engine. Most popular applications (and some of the not-so popular ones) are available as portable apps, so there are plenty for you to play with. But if you can’t find the ones that you need, you can build your own. The adventurous types can try the manual way, while the more practical types can use PAC – Portable App Creator. Compiling The ApplicationCreating a portable app is basically collecting all the elements of an installed application – which are normally scattered on different locations on your computer – into one place, so that it can be used on different computers. That’s exactly what portable app creator will help you to do. It seems that the original developer of PAC has long abandoned the project. So the one that we are going to use is the modified version by a PAC user. To download the latest version of the app (v. 0.97.3 beta), visit the site, and scroll down to the lower part of the page (the comment section) to find the download link. After you download and extract the zip file, open the PAC Compiler. This application will build the ‘real’ application: Portable Application Creator. To do so, PAC Compiler needs a file called autoit-v3-sfx.exe and will scan your drive for it. If it can’t find the needed file, it will ask you to download the file from the Internet.
After that, PAC Compiler will build PAC.
It will appear on the same folder as the compiler.
Creating A Portable AppNow let’s start building our portable application(s). Run PAC and tell it which drive is the portable drive.
Plug in your portable drive and find out the drive letter. Go back to PAC, choose the letter and click “Next“.
The next step will be locating the installer file of the application that you want to turn into a portable app. The PAC documentation mentions that the applications should be something that you’ve never installed before in your hard drive.
Continue the process by clicking “Install Application“.
PAC will remind you to install the app in your portable drive.
When the installer starts, it will ask you where to install the app. Browse and choose your portable device as the place to install the app.
After the installation process is finished, click the “Browse” button to locate the installed app on your portable drive. Click “Next” to continue.
Go through the steps one by one until the last one: “Process Shots“. Click “Next” to continue.
Click “Done” to complete the process, and your portable app is ready.
Using Portable AppsIf you peek into your portable device, you should find two folders: the application folder, and “PAC_Launchers” folder. To run the portable app, you should not open it from the application folder, but from the shortcut located inside the PAC_Launchers folder. If you want to move/copy your portable app to another location, you should include both the application folder and the PAC_Launchers folder. I’ve tried this, and everything went well. I created a portable application of a game that I recently purchased, played the game on different computers, and then copied the portable app and PAC_Launchers folders to another USB drive. When I opened the game from a different USB drive, the game continued where I left off. Please note that portable app creator will not always work on every application. The documentation states that PAC can’t create portable apps out of applications that require a “real restart” of your system during the installation process. Since there are some apps which ask for a system restart when they actually don’t need one, you just have to try creating the portable apps to see whether the process will be successful or not. If the applications that you want to convert into portable apps are already installed on your system, you could try uninstalling them first before turning them into portable apps. Are you a portable apps user? Have you tried to create your own portable apps? Do you use other portable app makers? Share your experiences using the comments below. Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Includes cool extras.
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 Free Productivity Apps In The New Mac App Store Posted: 26 Jan 2011 09:31 AM PST
The Mac App Store definitely simplifies the process of discovering new applications, and it goes a step further by making it super fast to download programs straight to your Application’s folder. No copying from dmg files or dragging and dropping from one folder to the next. On top of all that you can upgrade your Mac App Store apps from within the same Mac App Store application.
Whistle PhoneWhile we all know that it’s easy to make free Skype-to-Skype user phone calls on our Mac computer, there’s still another option – another free phone number! – for making phone calls via Wi-Fi. It’s called Whistle Phone.
This little gem allows you to make free inbound and outbound calls in the continental U.S. If you can put up with a simple 10-second ad, you can make these phone calls for free. You can also set up the application to forward Whistle calls to any phone number via its Follow Me service feature. It includes several other useful features, and the setup is easy. Time Out FreeIf you’re a Mac user who is glued to your computer all day, you’ll know that regularly tearing yourself away from the screen and your work is essential. If you don’t have the discipline to take needed breaks, Time Out Free can help you. Jackson featured this app before in his article How To Be More Productive By Taking Breaks [Mac Only]
I’ve used this program off and on for well over a year, and although it’s not the most attractive application on the block, it does the job of getting you off the computer – that is, if you let it. After your break times are configured, Time Out Free slowly dims your screen so that you can at least get up to take a stretch. If you’re a hardcore Mac user, you can snooze your set break times and keep on working. You can also configure for mini stretch breaks to occur say every thirty minutes or so. After you download the app, you will discover a few other little features for how Time Out Free will help you make your break time a useful activity. Hint: iTunes. Remind Me LaterOne of the long-time questions I’ve had about Apple’s iCal is why must we users open the entire application in order to add a simple reminder or event? I still have not got an answer to that question, but at least there are a few free third-party productivity apps that attempt to make the process easier. A free one in the App Store is called Remind Me Later.
This little program resides in your menu bar and it can also be activated by an assigned keyboard shortcut. It just takes two clicks to quickly add a reminder or event to your iCal. You don’t even have to use number dates. You simply write something like, “Article due tomorrow, 12pm.” Done. Translator FreeIf you have ever downloaded a website written in a foreign language, you will know how much of a hassle it is to translate the content using Google. Well, Translator Free uses Google as well, but they have simplified the process.
Just select the language you want to translate a webpage into, drag the URL onto the Translator icon in your menu bar, and voila, the content gets translated. It can’t get any simpler than that. DropCopyIf you find yourself copying files from say your desktop Mac to your laptop on a regular basis – or visa versa - DropCopy makes the process swift and easy.
You don't have to fuss with passwords, dialogs, and confirmations, just drop the files into the app and presto they appear at your designated location. Stone Hill Time CardAnother nice little productivity gem in the App Store is Stone Hill Time Card. When you activate and set up a project, this Time Card app keeps track of how much time it took to complete the task or job.
This app doesn't track the time of each application you use (see Slife for that), but it could be useful for simply keeping track of the time you're spending to get jobs done. PhoneLogAnother logging application in the App Store is aptly called, PhoneLog. It allows you to log phone calls you have made, including adding information about whom you called and what the call was about.
PhoneLog is not for someone who needs an automated process for logging phone calls, but it's useful for occasions when you're making say a service call for a household repair, or when you need to keep notes during a phone interview. You can also save all your logs. FGDesktopLoupeIf you often make video tutorials using video screen capturing apps like Jing or QuickTime Player, then FGDesktopLoupe may be of use to you. It simply dims your monitor screen and presents a spotlight beam that follows your mouse pointer to focus on designated areas of your screen.
You can use the CTRL-ALT to open the settings window and Command-ALT to toggle the dimmer effect on and off. LittlelpsumOkay, only graphic designers will understand the usefulness of Littlelpsum. It simply provides you with dummy fill-in text for when you're designing websites or text layouts.
The app resides in your menu bar, and when you hold your cursor over the icon, it starts to generate words or paragraphs of fake text and copies it to the clipboard. In turn, you paste the “text” where you need it. KindleIf you use Kindle or the Kindle app on your mobile device for reading, you will definitely want to download the desktop Kindle version for your Mac.
I reviewed the earlier version here. The recent update is better designed with faster downloading. Even if you don't like reading ebooks on your Mac, the desktop version offers some useful features, such as accessing your book annotations, that you can't get in the mobile iOS version. Hey, it's free, so you might as well download it. There are several other free Mac gems over in the App Store, so let us know about the ones you have downloaded. Your comments are a great way to recognize and thank developers for providing their programs for free. NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HTML5games: A Directory Of Flash-Free Browser Based Games Posted: 26 Jan 2011 08:31 AM PST
Free online games you can play in your browser used to be almost all powered by Adobe’s Flash. On today’s Internet however, games based on a new, open standard are beginning to emerge. HTML5games provides a great starting point for those wanting a look at what HTML5 can do in terms of gaming. BrowsingHead over to HTML5games and you’ll find a familar feel. Browse for games by category, or click one of the top recommended games to see what can be found.
None of the games in question are hosted by the site. Instead, the site acts as a sort of index of games from around the web built entirely using HTML5. There’s even a “mobile” category, perfect for people using a smartphone. This is particularly nice because many smartphones on the market have no support for Flash, so check the mobile category out. HighlightsSo, are there any good games? Yes, in fact. You can get started with Tank World, a 3D game impressively made entirely in HTML5.
Want to practice your typing? Why not give Ztype a try? This game is a bit like Space Invaders, but with words descending on you instead of alien ships. Type the words to blow them up! The sound effects and music here are really quite fun.
RAPT, or “Robots Are People Too”, is a platformer worth giving a shot. In it you control two different robots, making this a challenging single player game. Alternatively, play with a friend and share the load.
There are many more browser based games here, but I suggest checking them all out yourself. Recommend any good games below! Recommended BrowsersHTML5 being relatively new, you’re going to want an up-to-date browser to play these games. I highly recommend Google Chrome, although newer versions of Safari and Firefox work fairly well. If you’re an IE user, however, upgrade to the IE 9 beta or switch browsers to get the most out of these games. ConclusionSo why should anyone care what a browser based game is made of? Good question. It’s basically a question of the direction the Internet will head toward. For a long time multimedia content was provided by Adobe’s proprietary Flash protocol. This program, an extension installed on pretty much every computer accessing the Internet in the past 15 years, gave the web capabilities it otherwise wouldn’t have had. The result, however, was one company having control of the format that makes music, videos and games on the web possible. Many, including Apple’s Steve Jobs, feel that no one company should have that much control. Feel free to read more about HTML5, to get a better idea of what this all means. Do you care what platform your games run on? Do you think it’s cool that the web is increasingly using open protocols? Share your thoughts in the comments below, as always, and feel free to point out more cool games! NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| CheckPoints – Earn Cool Stuff By Checking In & Scanning Products With Your Phone Posted: 26 Jan 2011 07:31 AM PST
Next up on my list is a service called CheckPoints. The premise is very simple, you check in whenever you visit a store and scan the items you purchase to build up points and gain rewards. It takes very minimal effort and can actually be quite fun. Checking In Is So 2011I’m a big believer that 2011 is the year that mobile tech is going to blow up. With all the tablet PCs being unveiled at CES, news of Verizon getting the iPhone, and all the Android devices Google has planned for this year, people are going to be more mobile than ever. What does this mean for you? Apps. Developers will be coming out with a lot of great apps this year and, I believe, a good majority of them are going to utilize GPS capabilities. As more and more people become accustomed to checking in at places, more and more businesses will start cutting deals and utilizing these features.
CheckPoints is a perfect example of this. It offers a fun and easy way to collect rewards at places. Whether you’re at the grocery store, bookstore, or pharmacy you can check in and win cool stuff. What Is CheckPoints?
To get started using CheckPoints, just download the app for your iPhone or Android mobile device. Then, open up the app whenever you’re shopping and just tap on the item you want to scan, aim your phone’s camera at the barcode, and you’re done. Each time you scan a featured product you’ll earn points and coins to use in the bonus play area.
CheckPoints can be used in literally over a million stores to scan featured products with your phone. Rewards you can win include gift cards, airline miles, gadgets, and even donations to charity.
Every time you scan an item you can also collect bonus points by playing games and instantly winning. This is also a way for users to take advantage of CheckPoints opportunities if you are using, say, an iPod or iPad rather than a phone.
Also, you can use the Change Aisle button if you just want to see which items are nearest you in the store that you’re in. Here’s a very informative YouTube video of exactly how CheckPoints works: Where can I get CheckPoints?CheckPoints is currently available for the iPhone and Android devices. For iPhone (or iTouch/iPad), just head over to the App Store and download the app. For Android, you can scan the QR Code below using the cell phone barcode scan scanning app (which you’ll use for CheckPoints too) on your phone.
I think having the ability to scan any item you come across in a store is a big benefit to users with smart phones, and we’re going to start seeing a lot more creative uses for these types of technologies. What do you think of CheckPoints? NEW: Download MakeUseOf iPhone App. FREE!
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| New Search Engine Qwiki Launches To The Public [News] Posted: 26 Jan 2011 07:14 AM PST
Rather than be presented with a list of links and text, Qwiki pulls in content from sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, Google and Fotopedia, presenting users with images, videos and narrated text. Each entry is also accompanied by related search items.
After the entry has been displayed, you can share it via Facebook, Email, or Twitter, generate an embed code for your blog, as well as look up additional information on other sites from which the information has been gathered.
Qwiki, according to its founders, aims to be a computer generated fountain of knowledge, but that’s not to say that they’re not interested in contributions from users. If you feel that any given search result is lacking or inaccurate, you can put in your own two cents. Contribute images, videos and improve the text-to-speech quality by highlighting mispronounced words, without having to sign up.
The interface is slick and visually stimulating, and with over 3 millions entries, there is no shortage on the kind of information you’ll find on the site, and the much needed crowd-sourcing will only make it a more powerful tool in the future. That said, Qwiki has launched to mixed reviews. Some question the necessity of a service like this at all and its ability to take on search engine heavyweights like Google. While each search result is like a mini-documentary on any given topic, the information included barely scratches the surface. On the other hand, it’s received glowing reviews from most of the major tech media sources, already earning itself comparisons to Flipboard and Wikipedia. If anything is to be said for Qwiki, it’s that it offers an entirely new way to search for information, and how that information is delivered. There is still much work to be done, but for a site in its alpha phase, it’s already pretty impressive, and they’ve just bagged $8 million in funding from investors, including Facebook’s co-founder Eduardo Saverin, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim and Juniper co-founder Pradeep Sidhu. What’s your take on Qwiki? Does it have what it takes to compete with Google or is nothing going to drag you away from your dependable search engine? Let us know in the comments. Do you like MakeUseOf articles? Don’t forget to share our articles with others! It’s really important to us.
Similar MakeUseOf Articles
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Check out the top picks from MakeUseOf 
Check out some of the latest MakeUseOf discoveries. All listed websites are FREE or come with a decent free account option. You can make use of them without spending a dime. If you want to have similar cool websites round-ups delivered to your email daily email subscribe 
Many college terms will be starting around this time or even earlier so this application will come in extremely handy. If you’re a college student or know someone who is in school, and you own an iDevice, be sure to check out 
There’s no shortage of social networking tools to update your various social networks when you’re on the go, with many manufacturers bundling their own with the handset itself. 
For many years, anyone with a Hotmail account would go to Hotmail.com and access their email accounts in much the same way that you currently access Gmail. People become accustomed to the way Hotmail looked and felt, and it remained that way for a long time. However, in recent years, Microsoft started dramatically revamping the look and feel of Hotmail, so that many users have lost track of the things they used to have memorized, like accessing the MSN Hotmail Member Directory, for example.
If you’re in the market for a new computer, laptop, mobile phone, games and other accessories; don’t waste your time searching online. We’ve taken the liberty of locating the best tech deals and unifying them into a single post for your convenience.
Facing a job interview board probably comes right below public speaking on a fear list. Many of us liken it to a third-degree interrogation. But heck, do a few and you’ll find it's not too bad at all. Every veteran interviewee will tell you that being prepared is half the battle won. A technical interview might be a different ball game though.
As computer users shift their lifestyle from using one static desktop in one place to using multiple computers from multiple locations – while keeping their data mobile inside USB drives - 
Since I started using and 
Find fun games to play in your browser, without the use of flash. Whether you’re sick of flash causing your system to crash or you’re the proud owner of an iPad or another flash-free device, 
If you’ve been following the recent articles I’ve written here, you should be used to checking into places with your phone by now. In fact, you should already be familiar with services like 
| You are subscribed to email updates from MakeUseOf.com To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment